1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid-crystal display (LCD), and in particular, to a reflective liquid-crystal display.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent development of notebook-sized personal computers, portable telephones, and the like has spurred research and development of a reflective liquid-crystal display. The liquid-crystal display of this type does not require any subordinate lighting apparatus when used, for example, outdoors. Additionally, the display is quite suitably used with complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS). Therefore, power consumption of the display can be easily reduced. The reflective liquid-crystal display is highly promising in consideration of the protection of the environments of the earth.
In general, a lightguide or guiding plate is used to illuminate a reflective liquid-crystal panel. Particularly, in a reflective liquid-crystal panel of a side light type in which a light source is disposed at an edge surface of the light guiding plate to guide light into the light guiding plate, it is possible to reduce thickness and power consumption thereof.
The liquid-crystal panels used for reflective liquid-crystal displays mainly include, for example, a liquid-crystal panel which uses a guest host liquid crystal produced by adding dichroic dye to a phase-transition liquid crystal using cholesteric nematic phase transition and in which light absorption and light transmission are conducted according to changes of alignment in the dye. Moreover, there are employed a liquid-crystal panel of polymer-dispersion-type liquid crystal (PDLC) type using PDLC as well as a liquid-crystal panel in which a liquid crystal of phase modulation type such as a liquid crystal of an electric-field-controlled birefringence (ECB) type, super twisted-nematic (TN) type, or a TN-type is used in combination with a polarizer.